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Through their 10-year Discovery Accelerator partnership, Cleveland Clinic and IBM have unveiled the IBM-managed quantum computer, billed as the first of its kind in the world dedicated to health care research.

Installed on the Clinic's main campus, the IBM Quantum System One aims to help accelerate biomedical discoveries and is the first deployment of an onsite private sector IBM-managed quantum computer in the United States, according to a news release.

With the Clinic's expertise in health care and life sciences and IBM's expertise in technology, the two organizations each bring different skills and competencies to the partnership, said Ruoyi Zhou, director of the IBM Discovery Accelerator at Cleveland Clinic.

"We have something in common; that is innovation," Zhou said. "And so, when we work together, we identify problems that are really suitable for quantum computing and artificial intelligence."

A rapidly emerging technology, quantum computing harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems that are currently impractical or impossible to solve on today's supercomputers. The IBM Quantum System One, which will be made available for use through collaborations at a cost, and its new computational spaces could help researchers discover medicines and treatments more quickly.

For instance, bringing a drug from discovery to a patient can take upwards of 17 to 20 years, said Dr. Serpil Erzurum, the Clinic's chief research and academic officer. This technology can potentially accelerate that timeline to just two to three years, meaning if a patient gets sick and providers know the cause, "this could design the right drug treatment for you," she said.

"And as a physician caregiver, and as you know, a human being and a mom, you want things soon, you don't want to wait for them, right?" she said. "You don't want to wait 20 years."

The Clinic and IBM are both contributing resources to the effort, with the Clinic's cost being part of its $300 million commitment to the Cleveland Innovation District, a $565 million multi-institution, public-private push to create 20,000 jobs and boost research in the city.

The Cleveland Clinic-IBM Discovery Accelerator partnership, announced in 2021, focuses on advancing the pace of biomedical research through the use of high-performance computing, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, according to the release. It serves as the technology foundation for the Clinic's Global Center for Pathogen & Human Health Research, which is part of Cleveland Innovation District.

Through the innovation district overall, the Clinic estimates 1,000 new jobs will be generated at the system by 2029 and an additional 7,500 jobs in Ohio by 2034.

An educational curriculum is being designed for participants from high school to the professional level, offering training and certification programs in data science, machine learning and quantum computing, according to the news release, which notes a "significant part" of the collaboration focuses on job creation, economy growth and educating the workforce of the future.

"We are committed to developing the community ability for digital work," Erzurum said. "If you know how to work in this digital world, your opportunities expand exponentially."

IBM and the Clinic also are hosting research symposia, seminars and workshops intended for academia, industry, government and the public in an effort to build a critical mass of computing specialists in Cleveland, according to the release.

While many universities are teaching artificial intelligence, there aren't enough of those skills in the marketplace, Zhou said. And finding quantum computing skills is very difficult.

"We're looking at how do we build a workforce by partnering with universities, local universities, to develop the quantum skills locally," Zhou said.

To help expedite discoveries in biomedical research, the Discovery Accelerator has generated multiple projects that leverage the latest in quantum computing, AI and hybrid cloud, including, according to the release: developing quantum computing pipelines to screen and optimize drugs targeted to specific proteins, improving a prediction model for cardiovascular risk after non-cardiac surgery and applying AI to search genome sequencing findings and large drug-target databases to find effective, existing drugs that could help patients with Alzheimer's and other diseases.

Accelerating innovation and discovery of new drugs and targeted treatments will "dramatically" bring down costs, Erzurum said.

"So this, to me is a big part of our precision medicine initiative, the affordability of health care and drugs, and the time to treatment, all of which are critical when you have a very terrible disease," she said. "So that is my dream. And I want to see it happen here at the Cleveland Clinic and in Cleveland, Ohio, while I'm still living. I think it'll happen."

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IBM Quantum System One unveiled at Cleveland Clinic - Crain's Cleveland Business

Research using a quantum computer as the physical platform for quantum experiments has found a way to design and characterize tailor-made magnetic objects using quantum bits, or qubits. That opens up a new approach to develop new materials and robust quantum computing.

"With the help of a quantum annealer, we demonstrated a new way to pattern magnetic states," said Alejandro Lopez-Bezanilla, a virtual experimentalist in the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Lopez-Bezanilla is the corresponding author of a paper about the research in Science Advances.

"We showed that a magnetic quasicrystal lattice can host states that go beyond the zero and one bit states of classical information technology," Lopez-Bezanilla said. "By applying a magnetic field to a finite set of spins, we can morph the magnetic landscape of a quasicrystal object."

"A quasicrystal is a structure composed by the repetition of some basic shapes following rules different to those of regular crystals," he said.

For this work with Cristiano Nisoli, a theoretical physicist also at Los Alamos, a D-Wave quantum annealing computer served as the platform to conduct actual physical experiments on quasicrystals, rather than modeling them. This approach "lets matter talk to you," Lopez-Bezanilla said, "because instead of running computer codes, we go straight to the quantum platform and set all the physical interactions at will."

The ups and downs of qubits

Lopez-Bezanilla selected 201 qubits on the D-Wave computer and coupled them to each other to reproduce the shape of a Penrose quasicrystal.

Since Roger Penrose in the 1970s conceived the aperiodic structures named after him, no one had put a spin on each of their nodes to observe their behavior under the action of a magnetic field.

"I connected the qubits so all together they reproduced the geometry of one of his quasicrystals, the so-called P3," Lopez-Bezanilla said. "To my surprise, I observed that applying specific external magnetic fields on the structure made some qubits exhibit both up and down orientations with the same probability, which leads the P3 quasicrystal to adopt a rich variety of magnetic shapes."

Manipulating the interaction strength between qubits and the qubits with the external field causes the quasicrystals to settle into different magnetic arrangements, offering the prospect of encoding more than one bit of information in a single object.

Some of these configurations exhibit no precise ordering of the qubits' orientation.

"This can play in our favor," Lopez-Bezanilla said, "because they could potentially host a quantum quasiparticle of interest for information science." A spin quasiparticle is able to carry information immune to external noise.

A quasiparticle is a convenient way to describe the collective behavior of a group of basic elements. Properties such as mass and charge can be ascribed to several spins moving as if they were one.

Original post:
Qubits put new spin on magnetism: Boosting applications of ... - Science Daily

May 17, 2023 The Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program in the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science is organizing a workshop to identify priority research directions in quantum computing and networking to better position ASCR to realize the potential of quantum technologies in advancing DOE science applications.

Key deadlines:

DOE point of contact: Tom Wong (Thomas.Wong@science.doe.gov)

The mission of the ASCR is to advance applied mathematics and computer science research; deliver the most sophisticated computational scientific applications in partnership with disciplinary science; advance computing and networking capabilities; and develop future generations of computing hardware and software tools in partnership with the research community, including U.S. industry. ASCR supports computer science and applied mathematics activities that provide the foundation for increasing the capability of the national high-performance computing ecosystem and scientific data infrastructure. ASCR encourages focus on long-term research to develop intelligent software, algorithms, and methods that anticipate future hardware challenges and opportunities as well as science needs (http://science.energy.gov/ascr/research/).

ASCR has been investing in quantum information science (QIS) since 2017. ASCRs QIS investments span a broad scope of research in quantum computing and quantum networking with investments in quantum algorithms and mathematical methods; the creation of a suite of traditional software tools and techniques including programming languages, compilers, and debugging; quantum edge computing; and quantum applications such as machine learning. ASCR is also funding quantum hardware research and quantum testbeds: two quantum computing testbeds are available at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to external collaborators, and two quantum internet testbeds are being developed by LBNL and by a collaboration between Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). More information about ASCR QIS investments can be found here:https://science.osti.gov/Initiatives/QIS.

ASCR research into quantum computing and quantum networking technologies is making rapid progress, and specialized systems are now commercially available. It is important for ASCR to understand the potential of these new and radically different technologies relative to conventional computing systems and for DOE-relevant applications. However, ASCR is not interested in exploring the underlying, specific device technologies at this workshop. This workshop will focus on the following two exploration areas:

The workshop will be structured around a set of breakout sessions, with every attendee expected to participate actively in the discussions. Afterward, workshop attendees from DOE National Laboratories, industry, and academia will produce a report for ASCR that summarizes the findings made during the workshop.

Invitation

We invite community input in the form of two-page position papers that identify and discuss key challenges and opportunities in quantum computing and networking. In addition to providing an avenue for identifying workshop participants, these position papers will be used to shape the workshop agenda, identify panelists, and contribute to the workshop report. Position papers should not describe the authors current or planned research, contain material that should not be disclosed to the public, nor should they recommend specific solutions or discuss narrowly focused research topics. Rather, they should aim to improve the communitys shared understanding of the problem space, identify challenging research directions, and help to stimulate discussion.

One author of each selected submission will be invited to participate in the workshop.

By submitting a position paper, authors consent to have their position paper published publicly.

Authors are not required to have a history of funding by the ASCR Computer Science program.

Submission Guidelines

Position Paper Structure and Format

Position papers should follow the following format:

Each position paper must be no more than two pages including figures and references. The paper may include any number of authors but contact information for a single author who can represent the position paper at the workshop must be provided with the submission. There is no limit to the number of position papers that an individual or group can submit. Authors are strongly encouraged to follow the structure previously outlined. Papers should be submitted in PDF format using the designated page on the workshop website.

Areas of Emphasis

We are seeking submissions aimed at various levels of broadly scoped quantum computing and networking stacks:

While the program committee has identified the above topics as important areas for discussion, we welcome position papers from the community that propose additional topics of interest for discussion at the workshop.

Selection

Submissions will be reviewed by the workshops organizing committee using criteria of overall quality, relevance, likelihood of stimulating constructive discussion, and ability to contribute to an informative workshop report. Unique positions that are well presented and emphasize potentially-transformative research directions will be given preference.

Organizing Committee

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Call for Papers: ASCR Workshop on Quantum Computing and ... - insideHPC

In its National Quantum Strategy, which includes 2.5bn of funding, as well as plans for research zones and skills training, the government announced it will establish a regulatory framework that supports innovation and the ethical use of quantum technologies. This needs to be stable, agile, simple and ethical while also protecting UK capabilities and national security. One expert told Tech Monitor the focus should be on legislating for post-quantum cryptography before the UK is left behind.

Quantum computing is a potentially transformative technology, once fully realised it has the potential to change our understanding of the universe, the human brain and tackle problems like climate change. But it also comes with risk, including the potential to easily crack encryption and change warfare.

Governments around the world are investing heavily in quantum technology with China leading the world in terms of direct national-level funding followed by the EU and now the UK. Billions of dollars worth of venture capital, private investment and university research funding are also being put into the technology.

Last year Stanford Universitys Professor Mauritz Kop declared that we need to learn from our mistakes made around the regulation of AI before its too late and said quantum computing has the potential to be more dangerous than artificial intelligence without sufficient regulation.

In its National Quantum Strategy the government says it is important to engage early in the debates that will shape the future regulation of quantum technology. Early work will help to identify potential risks with the use of the new technology and develop new shared taxonomies, languages and principles to guide development.

Eventually new standards, benchmarking and assurance frameworks will increase in importance to facilitate technological development as use cases become more evident, helping to set requirements for interoperability and to measure performance within key sectors, the strategy says.

It includes a commitment to put innovation, business growth and the ethical use of quantum technologies at the heart of the UK economy while also trialing technologies within the UK through regulatory testbeds and sandboxes, as well as working with likeminded partners around the world to shape norms and standards as the technology evolves and becomes more mainstream.

A lot of the commitment is outward facing, with the strategy calling for the UK to play a role in the World Trade Organisation, the World Economic Forum, the G7, the G20, OECD, NATO, the Council of Europe, the Commonwealth and the UN, including utilising the UK seat on the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to ensure that quantum regulation supports UK business and innovation, that the UKs wider prosperity, security and defence interests are represented and that we continue to uphold the UKs values including those on human rights.

The government also outlined proposals to ensure the economy and national security are protected including working with likeminded allies to monitor and review current and future controls including through export regimes, security goals and IP protection.

The plan is also to ensure the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) continues to publish guidance on the transition to quantum-safe cryptography. "In terms of Government's own preparedness, mitigations have already been put in place for critical information and services," the report declares with specific recommendations to follow the US NIST process.

There will also be work on technical standards, including through quantum safe cryptography in partnership with the ISO, IEC and ITU and efforts on building assurance frameworks for the use of these technologies as they mature. Much of this is following the pattern set out for regulation of artificial intelligence, including sandboxes, standards and regulator-led guidelines.

"The Chancellor bolstered the UK technology strategy with the 2.5bn 'Plan for Quantum', but the writing is on the wall: the extraordinary processing power of quantum computers will have a catastrophic impact on digital systems unless we begin a cryptographic transition now, Tim Callan, chief experience officer at digital identity and security company Sectigo told Tech Monitor.

IT leaders need to start paying attention today to the upcoming threat of quantum computing and preparing their organisations to upgrade to new post quantum cryptography in order to head off, or at least mitigate, the damage.

As well as the promise of investment in research, promotion of greater compute power and regulation, the National Quantum Strategy also promises 15m of direct funding to enable government to act as an intelligent, early customer of quantum technologies, which James Sanders, principal analyst for cloud and infrastructure at CCS Insight said needs greater articulation as currently there are unlikely to be many circumstances where a quantum computer can be used by the government to find efficiency or optimisation that couldnt be done with a classical machine

In terms of regulation, Sanders says it falls under two different priorities: export restriction and intellectual property protection. The first is similar to the approach seen with the export of precision semiconductor manufacturing technology as well as export of advanced GPUs for AI model training, which he says are two aspects prioritised today by the US government.

Ben Packman, head of strategy at UK post-quantum cryptography company, PQShield, says quantum technology is developing at speed around the world, and that more up-front funding will be required for the UK to maintain its leadership position in the sector. Any delays could leave the door open for others to overtake us, which is a real problem if youre thinking about the UKs adversaries developing a quantum computer intended for malicious purposes, he says.

Private and public partnerships are required to protect against this, and other risks associated with the technology, including the adoption of legislative and policy updates. The US has the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act but, in the UK, this new strategy is light when it comes to mitigating the risks associated with quantum, says Packman.

He said that while regulators are already engaging with industry and academics across the quantum value chain to build a regulatory framework, the UK is behind when it comes to cryptography legislation. The US has already actively legislated for quantum-safe cryptography, and where the US National Security Agency (NSA) has issued a very specific set of guidance and timelines in its CNSA 2.0 framework," he says. "Wed like to see the UK match and even go beyond this if it is to become a true quantum superpower.

Many British companies, including PQShield, are contributing to the cryptographic standards considered as part of the NIST review. The outcome of this will set the global standard for post-quantum cryptography, including algorithms used across industry and government.

Wed like to see the UKs quantum achievements shouted about from the very top, Packman adds. The government also needs to align all its departments on the same path, including bodies like GCHQ and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and MI5s newly-created National Protective Security Authority (NPSA).

"The strategy doesnt mention the DRCF or Digital Catapult and how they can support the wider quantum strategy. It seems to me that both schemes could play a relevant role, so it would be good to see the dots being connected at a strategic level.

Read more from the original source:
How will the UK develop quantum computer regulation? - Tech Monitor